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Loading... East of Midnight (Puffin Books) (original 1977; edition 1980)by Tanith Lee
Work InformationEast of Midnight by Tanith Lee (1977)
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Barbarian rebellious slave, fleeing for his life, swapped with a magic-worker from another reality, fleeing his pre-ordained death as consort to the female ruler of a female warrior society. About like you'd expect. Why this ever ended up in the MagicQuest series? This is old-school hard fantasy. (Obviously, this isn't to my taste.) The mechs are pretty cool though. This novella was lacking for me. There was very little world building and it was fairly sexist. Basically a typical ye-olde-y time that Dekteon lived in and a ye-olde-y time with magic and hybrid animals and woman kings that Zaister lived in. D and Z switch lives and D is puzzled and somewhat disgusted that women hold power (cuz, you know, they're supposed to be submissive property) so he decides to just be manly and powerful and do the opposite of what the women tell him to do. So basically the women only hold power because the men never thought to argue that point??? In the end, I didn't get the message Tanith was trying to send. I didn't care about any of the characters (except the horned lions the women rode like horses), though I do think Izvire is a sweet name. I read this in about 3 hours, and Tanith is bae and I want to read all her work, so I'm not mad. But I wouldn't recommend this to the casual fan. no reviews | add a review
Belongs to Publisher SeriesMagic Quest (15)
Born a slave, Dekteon knows his life's course is grimly predictable. But, while escaping his Lord's hounds, he finds himself drawn into a strange world. There he meets Zaister, the consort of the Moon King, who, like all royal consorts, is destined by tradition to die an early death. To save himself, he has used his magic powers to draw Dekteon to him, and change their identities - Zaister becomes Dekteon, and Dekteon, Zaister. Despite being in Zaister's body, Dekteon retains much of his own personality, and, slowly, begins to win the heart of Izvire, the woman Moon King. Just before her husband is due to be killed, Izvire schemes to save him, at great risk... But Dekteon knows that if he permits this to happen, Zaister, in his own body, will be condemned to the fate of a slave. And so he hatches a plan which will save them both... No library descriptions found.
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)823.914Literature English & Old English literatures English fiction Modern Period 1901-1999 1945-1999LC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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Once there, a pale and expressionless being advises that his master awaits, and takes Dekteon in a cart drawn by a strange horse with bear-like feet to a ruined mansion where he meets the master - Zaister, who looks remarkably like himself but is an obvious sorcerer. He is given the job of night watchman, despite his initial resistance, and has a number of strange and disturbing encounters. And then he finds out what Zaister has in mind for him ....
This very short book was published in the Puffin imprint in the UK, which is for older children - I suppose what would be termed teen now. It sticks to that brief - although at one point a sexual relationship between married people is portrayed, it is done very subliminally and decorously. To begin with, it is very intriguing and I especially liked the carnivorous sheep which have a great depiction, by Bridie Page, on the back cover of the UK edition. One sequence where Dekteon is driven by malevolent bunnies (!) which prevent him from running by constantly tripping him up, and is pursued by the sheep is nicely creepy.
Unfortunately, when Dekteon is sent to the world where Zaister wants him to fulfil his role
Not only is it all a bit of a simplistic tale of gender stereotypes, but unless the reader is to believe that Zaister undergoes complete reprogramming during the few days he later spends with Dekteon, his character is completely inconsistent. Despite being shown to be in such awe and fear of women
To summarise then, this book had great early promise - more of the carnivorous sheep and spiteful rabbits would have been very welcome - but was derailed by a cliched and gender-stereotyped storyline. For that reason, I can only give it two stars, one of them being for the sheep, rabbits and great cover. ( )